Drug wars a focus in Mexico race

Major candidates agree on need to combat trafficking

MARIANO CASTILLO, San Antonio Express-news

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, June 27, 2006

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - Mexico's top three candidates for president agree on several things, but their biggest rhetorical overlap could be on the need to combat the drug traffickers who in recent years have turned this city into a battleground.

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Nuevo Laredo, where more than 300 people have been killed in drug violence over the past 2 1/2 years, is listening. The city has put drug trafficking, or more generally, public safety, on par with immigration and the economy as a campaign issue.

Whether that will translate into votes in Sunday's election is anyone's guess. Some analysts compare drug cartels to corporations, with big fish overtaking the smaller fry, forming and breaking alliances, engineering mergers and acquisitions.

But bullets are their currency, and a large swath of northern Mexico is at risk of getting caught in the crossfire.

Lopez Obrador visited Nuevo Laredo twice during the campaign season; Madrazo stumped here once. Calderon, citing potential risk, did not campaign in this border city until last Saturday.

The race for mayor in neighboring Laredo this spring showcased how important the security issue is locally. Raul Salinas, a former FBI agent and political newcomer who campaigned hard on his law enforcement background to identify with voters' fears of spillover violence from Nuevo Laredo, upset an experienced councilman.

A vow to restore safety

"Of course it is an important issue, as well as one of the most sensitive," said
Manuel Canales Escamilla
, the president of the PRI in Nuevo Laredo. "But it's not necessarily a political issue. It's a government issue at all three levels."

Madrazo supports the creation of a unified national police force to better coordinate the nation's disparate federal police, Canales said.

"His hands will not tremble when it's time to take actions to correct problems," Canales said, adding that Madrazo made a public vow to restore public safety in Nuevo Laredo.

Details of Madrazo's plans were hazy. Madrazo has not specified whether a new national police would replace the current Federal Preventative Police, Canales said.

Calderon shares Madrazo's vision of a new federal police force, but his campaign offered more details.

"What he is proposing is to make a singular intelligence unit that can centralize all of the information from all of those police departments," said Jorge Ramirez Rubio, the PAN leader in Nuevo Laredo.

Tried by hooded judges?

Calderon also has outlined a plan to create a separate police force that is solely dedicated to apprehending drug traffickers, to relieve the overextended force attached to the attorney general's office, called the PGR.

The PAN candidate also has said he would push to allow drug traffickers to be tried by hooded judges, to protect the justices and reduce corruption, Ramirez said.

'Strong-willed'

Lopez Obrador, in a statistical dead heat with Calderon for the presidency, has been the toughest-talking candidate on the stump when it comes to curbing the narcos, but gives few details.

What's important is "that authorities don't collude with organized crime and don't side with one group to eradicate another," said the PRD president here, Jorge Valdez Vargas. "We are here, hardfisted and strong-willed, as it should be."